Greedy Goblin

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Who will feed the rated BGs?

Pugnacious priest made me think. Did Blizzard plan the rated BG system properly? The FAQ says that you get conquest points when you win. So you don't get rewarded for losing. Giving out rewards for losing is a simple way to keep the system running: people sign up just to lose. Please note that this was the situation for Arenas too: you could gain arena points by simply having 10 matches played. When you answered a "LF partner for 10 matches" you knew you are not going to win, but for 30 mins play you'll get 2-300 arena points.

I'm fully aware that a ladder system gives 50% wins to everyone on the long run. Some will win half of their matches at 300 rating while others will do the same on 3000. The question is: will the system has a long run? Will there be enough players for the ladder to form? Let me explain: when the system starts, everyone has the same matchmaking rating (MMR). If team X belongs to the lowest 10% (someone has to), then they have 10% chance to get matched against another lowest 10% team. So they have 5% chance to win, resulting in loss after loss. In the long run, it's not a problem. By losing, their MMR decreases, while those who defeat them get their MMR elevated, decreasing the chance of being matched again. When everyone reaches their proper MMR, team X will be only matched against similar low-10% teams, getting 50% wins.

I did not see this a problem until the post of Pugnacious Priest. She wrote about demoralizing defeats as a strategy. To win by wiping the enemy to make them go AFK or "let's lose fast". The first weeks can have the same effect. What if team X won't play 100 matches until their MMR lowers properly? What if they quit after losing 10 in a row? Then those teams that had a chance against them lose on the opportunity to win, getting a stronger team next match. They will leave too. This cycle of leaving stops only at teams that PvP seriously and ready to lose as lot claiming "we must work hard and get lot of experience before we deserve a victory". However this will mean that even the weakest teams in rated BGs will be pretty good. So when a new team joins the rated BG system, they get obliterated, quiting.

What the rated BG system lacks (and arena system had) is a reliable bottom-feeder. When you started arenas as a newbie, you were not only tempted by the "arena points for 10 loss", but you were matched against "LF partner for 10 matches" teams. No matter how hard you sucked, you were not obliterated as you were facing non-cooperating "teams" who queued up expecting 10 losses. If you were a bit better than them, like having a real team, having some gear, gems, enchants, knowing the basics of your class, you could get to the 1200-1500 rating range. You never had the feeling of "I'm just fodder here" as no matter how bad you played today, you couldn't get below the "LF partner for 10 matches" guys.

What could Blizzard do to prevent a total disaster of the rated BG system:

Approximate MMR: instead of giving everyone the same MMR at start, they could guess one from past arena ratings, BG/WG time spent, highest resilience reached, whatever that correlates with PvP success. This way the lowest 10% guys would be facing with at least lowest 30% guys, providing them enough victories to stay until the system reaches equilibrium.

Give reward for losing. Any form of reward that make someone queue up despite expecting a defeat would work. This can be temporary, like giving M conquest points for just fighting in rated BG in its first month.

Allow players to queue up alone, auto-forming random raids. This would at least fix the organizing problem. The loser team don't quit, 1 or 2 players quit, forcing the others to wait for 5-10 minutes, spamming /trade again. Since many people want "l33t epixx" the majority of the "teams" would be random pugs, so a random pug would win 40-45% of their matches (as in 80-90% of the cases would be facing another random pug).

The second and third solution would also be very motivating to new teams. I mean if you form a real team (you know one that has stuff like ... healers), your first matches will be a parade bashing "LFM for 10 fast matches" or randomly formed teams until you reach your dedicated MMR.

I hope Blizzard has #1 implemented or some other statistical tool to place people to their proper place fast, or this great feature (that I'm personally expecting a lot) will go down. However it is possible that Blizzard expects this "faliure" and wish for it. I mean creating the rated BG system is not a huge development work. The BGs themselves, the queue system and the MMR calculator are programed already for different purposes so with a little copy&paste they give a toy to a 1-10% HC playerbase (120K-1200K players), so they are happy and also don't roflstomp any more random players with their premades.

41 comments:

One idea which leaps to mind and seems sensible is that rated battlegrounds could provide Conquest points for winning, and regular Honour points for losing.

That way, you could queue for a normal battleground (getting Honour for winning, and a small amount of Honour for losing), or queue for a rated battleground, where you will still get some Honour for losing, but at least have a shot at getting some Conquest if you manage a win.

There is nothing wrong with a system where the unskilled give up, since they still have the non-rated battlegrounds. Meanwhile those teams who want to get better - even when they take a beating time after time against way better cq. more experienced teams - will learn a lot, and fast. For obvious reasons: they are determined and they face better teams.

It will take a few weeks to even out the field, and those weeks will be fed with experimental teams 'who just want to check out' this new feature.

In the long run, the rated bg's will be more or less m&s free, and the overall quality of play will be way better than it would ever be with a losing reward.

The merging of the battlegroups should provide the system with enough teams to get an acceptable queue time during 'normal' hours.

I truly hope Blizzard will not reward slacking for once, and keep the current system going.

The problem with that idea, zenga, is that's not at all how the real world works. Loss after loss after loss against people you truly have no chance at ever beating (which will be the case if participation ever starts to slide.) does not encourage the average person to try harder. It demoralizes and says to them "you will never get this far, just quit now".

With no fun incentive to be a feeder, you get the entirety of the Wrath of the Lich King arena fiasco. Just look at how participation utterly died when Blizz made it that only teams who make forward progress got anything out of the system. We went from having everybody having a team that they played on a weekly to bi-weekly basis for the fun, and little reward it gave, to having next to no one being willing to play. The proof lies in Blizzard lowering the rating requirements when it became clear that even decent players were unable to get the rewards. The number of gladiators dropped dramatically simply because there were not enough people to add to the percentages.

What you're left with is a fun system for those who are extremely good at the game, and another unfun system that no one bothers with for everyone else.

See I hate this way they have implemented it. As a pugger who pugs just about everything on a bad server, I know my pugs have no serious chance of success here. I was expecting to be able to queue solo and join rated bgs at my level. Now I am no "leet pro" roflstomping nubs, but I know my class, so I expected once the 2.2k arena teams, gladiators and shadowpriests all elevated out of my bracket, I would be left with the normal people like myself and the idiots on whom I would prey upon until I was elevated from THEIR brackets. Then in 6 months or so, everytime I queued I would be playing with and against similar skilled people to myself. Which would be amazing. No more being ganked. No more being told "lol just eat" by healers as the shadowword pain destroys 30% of my remaining health per tick and my food wont save me. No more aoeing a sapped paladin to break the rogue out of stealth (not that we hunters can do this anymore) only to watch him ride off to attack some mage with 4 other guys while the rogue has me in a stun lock. No more frustration, just genuine fun. Denied. Oh well. there's still losing in arenas for points and I can enjoy losing tol barad with my "l33t lol gear".

@zenga "There is nothing wrong with a system where the unskilled give up, since they still have the non-rated battlegrounds." Unrated bgs are gone. the only people who might queue for them are advanced premades teams who dont want to risk a high rating while trying an experimental strategy. No on else will bother as "lol why queue for that when we can get points for rated nub"

@chewie from yesterday, I figure you will read this at some point: thanks for the correction, guess thats what happens when you learn bits of a language from tv and conversations. I never read anything in spanish, so alot of it.. anyway no excuses. Thanks for correcting my mistake.

@zengaYou have no idea what you are talking about. Blizzard is not developing such huge feature to be used by only like 10% people. This is from economic point of view.

From the practival point of view:If this system will not reward you for loosing (when you loose 100% of your games you will gain nothing) it will be complete failure in no time. One might not see it at the begining but in a few weeks systems will be as good as dead.You might ask why? Here is the answer: Most of Rating Points Systems systems are 0 sum or close to 0 sum. This means that in order for teams to go up, some must go down. This means that without srubs in arena there would be no easy wins, this means thatthere are no more teams above 1800 rating. This means even fewer teams as the time goes by as you are be facing top teams more frequently and more people get 0 wins every week. This leads to more people quitting.

#1 would be quite complex. Which numbers to take? highest rating ever? actual rating? I don´t think that Blizz has enough data on every player, after starting a new season, to evaluate an average rating. And by the way, why does the system has to, the "let´s go for 10 loses" strategy always worked in arena to feed the lower rating (excluding 2 vs 2 where most new teams were highend only-achievement-rollers or a newb-dragger).

#3 would give us rndm vs rndm rated BGs in the bottom level. So we have the usual BG-crap.I can already hear my BG-Leader in TS: "Okay it´s random crap again, half of you can go afk."

I´d personally prefer a system of 3 gained by win 2 by tie and 1 by loosing (when speaking of rewarding slacking). At least they get some reward for lining up and getting stomped over. Elseway we´re in a rating-payment system again. And if I got the FAQ right it only provides us with a maximum-value.

I personally like Blizzards system. It will keep up competition in rated BGs. I look forwart to some very interesting an challenging matches. Elseway I´d have to go back to the arena and only doing rated bg´s for achievement or titles (or boosting point-gain)? But that´s personal.

@rashnu: actually it's not a huge feature from development point of view. The battlegrounds themselves are programed already for unrated random BGs, the queue system is programed for them and LFD, the rating system is programed for arenas. So it makes sense to copy&paste a little to please 5% of the playerbase (600000 players).

Also if new players enter the system with non-zero MMR, lose some matches (losing rating to a participating team), then leave the system, they just donated some MMR to the system.

@Desolate: Blizzard MUST give an initial rating to everyone. ANY approximation that is better than the "everyone gets the same at start" is better.

Your BG team would never meet "random crap" after the first weeks, as all "random crap" participants have trashed their MMR way below yours.

I don't think we know enough to speculate on this. (other than the fact thatI shall QQ about it requiring premade group.)

I read where wins increase your rating but losses do not lower it. (But I have also read that your rating could go down.)

Each time you play, it could be with a different team. I think the article and response sort of imply it was a "team", which the last I read is not the case. Each win changes the team members rating individually. So how would a team of 5 10s and 5 20s be rated relative to 6 5s and 4 30s?

It may be that the way to get your rating up is to take 7-9 good regulars and then add any 3-1 new players to drag down the team average. Does someone who has lost all 100 of their rated bgs have the same 0 rating as some former gladiator who has never played in a rated BG?

If everything starts at the same MMR they will seperate quite fast. Implementing a player-valuing system would be...

a) complex and very difficult to balance. Since we all know Blizzard never implemented souch a system to prevalue a player I think this would never be implemented (yes I´d prefer that but utopia keeps missing...)

b) a medicore system, that could be abused to get easy achievements (X wins in a row, X wins) or for personal "lol bashor them n00bz".

c) a almost nonexistent system as tanking pure highest / last rating.

And another factor, what would be better to start at point zero? lower MMR or higher?Quite simple a lower MMR provides you to fight against "scrubs" at the first games, you will get maximum gain (rating) since the difference between your "lower MMR" and a rating of zero is over the cap.With higher MMR you will gain the same number of rating as the lower MMR but you will loose sometimes.

Points earned per play will be higher when you have a high quality playstile and a lower starting MMR. Since you will loose less at lower MMR you will get back to your usual MMR quite fast but on a higher rating. So they will do everything to abuse this system.

By using every starting rating for everyone the quality player are seperating from the medicore and "scrubs" quite fast. Still a common strategy is to lower your MMR at point Zero to get the faster "start", but as you waste games at loosing that´s only for medicore combination / playstyle.

Actually I would think about abusing the system (playing down a arenateam before going to rated BGs) to get a fast start and a higher maximum point-per-week value. Scrubs-Killing is quite boring but it would get you a benefit.

Only being able to join in a team makes sense, imagine aiding alone to find your in a random team against a Pre-made everytime? Your rating would plummet without any chance of getting up. Because you will just face new premade teams starting there upward spiral to the better ratings.

Just a side note from Blizzard FAQ everyone will start at 0 MMR and climb up.

@Gevlon.It is huge development. Solely for rated BG's Blizzard is introducing Region wide battlegroups. This is one of the biggest features Bliizards is showing as a part of Cata.

Rated BG's has more potential impact on PvP than arenas ever had. We finally have a chance to see some strategy in PvP instead of midless smashing others in a small box.

You seem to forget that if you receive nothing for loosing and loss will be very probable due to less and less scrub teams there will be very few random groups forming, because rated BG's will be pecaved as a waste of time. Outside of season 1 people will end up with way lower ratings due to less teams and less scrubs to score easy wins. This leads to the situation when people joining in face top teams = no point in joining = death of the system except for some elitist PvP'ers.

I agree that there should be automatic PUG option. In my opining this would pretty much solve all of the problems as playing PUG vs PUG you have 50% chance of winning due to moroans joining on both sides.

Side note again: Blizzard will fix it and I'm sure of it. Looking at their development strategy there will never ever be a system in WoW that is designed to pr0's only (something like Naxx in vanila being visited by very small margin of players and being beated by even less). WoW got casual, and it's good for Blizzard income. It tourned from try-harder-or-gtfo mode to farm-harder-and-spend-more-time-in-game mode.

@Desolate: no need to balance it as it is just an initial value set. Even such primitive system as "everyone with 10K HK starts at 1500 MMR, without it 1000, with 1700 arena achievement at 2000" would be better than "everyone starts at 1500"

If the system is zero-sum, a new player must start with average rating by definition as everyone starts at new player at the beginning and the "new player enters" is the only way to bring in points. It is possible to generate points within the system (winner get more points than loser loses), but that's easy to abuse. The only alternative is every time a new player enters with 0 pt, every active players gets X/n pt, where X is the defined average and n is the player count.

@rhasnu: no, your "visible rating" starts at zero and elevates until reaches your hidden MMR. It is designed to make the bad players see their rating going up instead of their MMR going down.

Region wide battlegroups are used also for LFD and random BGs. The long queues for low level BGs was a long time problem, especially for AV. The region-wide BGs also allowed the finer bracketing (10-14 & 15-19 instead of 10-19)

As I told before, you lose MMR when you lose, you just don't see it until your visible rating elevates to your MMR.

Also, you can't really make PvP casual as you can't nerf the opposing team. It is a good move from Blizzard to give a toy to the pros, just to make them leave random BGs, exactly to make that casual-friendlt.

"If team X belongs to the lowest 10% (someone has to), then they have 10% chance to get matched against another lowest 10% team. So they have 5% chance to win, resulting in loss after loss."

This isn't right. To explain why, let's repeat the above statement, but for a different group of players:

"If team X belongs to the top 1% (someone has to), then they have 1% chance to get matched against another top 1% team. So they have 0.5% chance to win, resulting in loss after loss."

Splitting the chance like this is mathematically sloppy. If the assumption in Gevlon's original quote is that team is ranked at 5% (the middle of the bottom 10% bracket) then yes, rank would correspond to win percentage.

Since MMV/MMR is a highly dynamic Value it is not to balance static situation as a starting point.

The "starting point" when high rated PvPers are together with "casual joe" in the same MMV is in the first weeks of a season. After that the high rated PvPer is untouchable for "average Joe" and he will usually never see him again.

So we get the situation where "scrubboy" meets "average Joe" and yes, "scrubboy" looses and gets farther down. Since he has no real clue of BG etc. he will never have a chance against "average Joe".

If "scrubboy" doesn´t quit, "average Joe" will have at least some easy enemys when his MMV gets low. But when his MMV gets high he meets a high rated PvPer who crushes him hard. By that he will at best optain 50% winratio. But by that his rating increases and his MMV goes down so he will gain less and less points. The system gets grindy for "average Joe" since "scrubboy" and "roflxdkiddo" (below "scrubboy") are gone out of his MMV range, the other way the high rated PvPer got. He will quit.

It s no matter where MMV starts since the situation will dynamically change in some weeks / month (at known values we speak of ~+/-40to80 pts/game). And in the given system as soon as your MMV reaches your actual rating (static system) it gets less profitable and less interesting because its gain/efford is extremly low. That was the point where the "lol we wipe and get points" was right. It never got got to a low gain/efford since you had no efford at all.

The "you have to win to get points and it scales with rating and MMV value" is the thing that will depress on the long run. The "Grandmarshals" and "Highwarlords" will be gone fast for "average Joe".

Being in the top 1% would yeild a 95.5% win rate. .5% loss is when they come across another team in the top 1% . if they are only playing against other top 1% then the rest of the teams don't belong in the equation therefore they would still yeild a 50% win rate. it's not based on the entire pvp population but only the relative bracket they belong in. Assuming that high skill and gear are reasonably equal. So it come down to purely luck. Or how many scissor your team had as allowed to how many papers the other team had.

Personally I don't care about being beaten by people with superious skill, but I dislike the imbalance introduced by the gear factor. I think PvP areas (arenas/bgs) should have a standard set of gear for every class and spec, so that only skill (and precious luck) determines the outcome; just like in most FPS-games.

@GevlonHmn, I have to think about your argumens and I'll write my comment later

@Yaggy,Yes, this is my dream. I wish that the gear was standarised and the only thing you'd gain is ability to change the looks of it. Otherwise the only resonable option to have some "skill based fun" in WoW is to go to the Tournament Realm.

I have to disagree with you there. WoW does a great job of making it so that most players can become "viable" in PVP fairly quickly, especially compared to other MMO RPG's (need I mention darkfall?). Even before patch 4.0, new 80's could get full furious gear very quickly and be competitive in PVP. Sure the veterans have an advantage, but improving your character's strength is an important part of RPG's. It would be stupid if fresh 80's were just as powerful in PVP as players who've been level 80 for years.

Having generic equipment sets would take a lot of the fun out of the game, and decrease the incentive to even do PVP.

@thehampsterI can't say I agree. While it isn't that hard to get 'decent' PvP gear, PvP has traditionally been advertised as the more skill-based component of WoW. In that sense being more powerful in PvP would correspond to being a more skilled player, and not just having a stronger attack/spell, which is what stronger gear results in.

If there had been an Arena bracket in which all equipment was equal, the average veteran would obviously still beat the average new player, as he'd be a better player. Saying there'd be less of an incentive to play is basically saying you PvP in order to get phat loot, which I don't think is true. PvP is fun, and there's plenty of possible rewards outside of loot (which is really only useful for PvP anyway, so in this system it wouldn't be missed), such as achievements, titles, pets, mounts and so on.

Admittedly Blizzard has an economic incentive to make people grind, but I'd think many people would be more motivated to play in this system. The only people who wouldn't want to would be the people who would win against skillwise superior teams with their own superior gear, which I can't imagine is a large group. People who say "oh, I'd be great at PvP had it not been for my bad gear lol stupid nolifers" would want to play, so all in all I'd think more people would PvP. There'd be plenty of excuses for them when they still lost - failing anything else they still have "bad luck lol" to fall back on.

I think Blizz already solved this problem. You don't need an established team for rated battlegrounds like in arenas. You just make a raid, and join the BG. It's a big difference, because this way random "raids" can be formed. And if this kind of raid fails, the M&S will just say that it was a fail group, it's not his fault, and will join an another one next day. Sometimes he will encounter an even worse group and he will win, and will be happy.

I don't see why gear is interesting at all in WoW; it is merely upgrades of one or two unique sets of items; most gear just raises the stats of the previous, so what's the interest in getting it except being able to match content that requiers higher stats?

Believing that you actually get new unique gear when you upgrade your old with a better version is simply an (social) illusion in my opinion.

@thehampster: I don't agree that it is fast to get a decent PvP set for BGs; I think that there should be at least a minimal set that you can use for free to even get started; why should one have to grind BGs (often populated with non-cooperative 'morons') in non-viable PvP gear to even be able to get a set of starter PvP gear? The only logical reason I see is, as has already been pointed out, that Blizzard makes money out of people having to grind (I'm sure it's a big money factor in most similar games).

1) "Losing fast" is a terrible game design.2) When success of the opposing team is based on skill and not gear, it is necessary for them to continuously adapt their tactics. Thus by improving one's own skill winning is always a possibility, and no one should feel discouraged by losing unless they don't enjoy PvP and just want to farm rewards.3) WoW's sometimes-invisible ELO-based rating systems are designed to give fair rewards given the probable difficulty of winning. The issue is not whether the system will tend towards accuracy, but rather if it would be fun. I couldn't say personally, as I only did one BG ever on live (AV a single time for quest) and have never been in a preform, much less for multiple games with gear as the goal.4) (zomg I found it) "the scrubbiest scrub of them all" by Arash

On a more serious note, there are only a few attempts at showing somewhat-coordinated BG PvP~ Laintime 2, (previously mentioned) Gegon, and Alexis around 6m22s... PoV recorder escorts flag carrier to opposite flag room, trades them a potion of swiftness running midfield while chased by the almost entire opposite team, then chases down and helps kill the opposite flag carrier who ran past before finishing with 18 health left when BG ends and they are healed to full \lol/

A better solution, I think, would be allowing "defeat" rewards for low-ranked people. This way, you would have the trade-pug fodder on lower levels (training/stepping stones for those that wish to improve), but wouldn't be raining arena rewards on the weak players.

Low Rank (bottom half or so): 1 reward for losing, 3 from winning.

Decent Rank (top half or so): 10 rewards for winning, 0 for losing.

If you rank up you get good rewards, since in a well-balanced matching system, you should average 5 rewards per match, which is better than the sure-3 you should get by faceroling low-ranked people. Add a tiering so you must get on the top-half to get the great rewards, and you should end up with a fairly solid system.

This was a real problem at the start of Starcraft II where everyone was getting their matches in to be ranked but ended up playing against top level players or even professionals. This resulted in good players being ranked much lower then they should have been and such the bad players never getting a chance to play people at their level, which is bad for all those involved.

This went on for the first month or so. My hope is that Blizzard has learned from this and decides to create some sort of base rank system at the begining or it will take too much time because of WoWs much larger player base for it to correct itself.

I believe the intent is that people can buy crafted starter PvP gear, and with new craftables for each season.

Note that someone who has a very high MMR and plays with 14 others who have very low MMR could lose a match with much less consequence. I.e., someone in rated BGs could have far more losses, provided all his fellow players were low rated, and still be in the 99.5 percentile than someone in arenas.

It looks like this is a great system for PvP-incompetent Goblins to get purples. I.e., the goblin joins a team of 14 others who can carry them. The 14 not only get gold, but they get more points because their overall team rating was lowered. I.e., they are rewarded for having a M&S in their team. And it is egalitarian. SInce. unlike arena, these are ad-hoc groups, next week they would prefer to boost a new M&S who has a lower rating than the M&S they boosted last week.

If the problem in the system is that it eliminates good deal of spineless cowards with no resolve to improve then by all means... thats good.

The reason they quit is the very fundamental point of PvP... to show who is better. If you quit because you were worse then why did you joined to begin with?

I dont want to sound like a elitist prick since I have nothing to boast around to begin with but still... there are lines to cattering. Those lines are breached when you ignore the basic concepts of improving and getting better in favor to "I pay the same money! I want it too!"

The problem is not in bad system but bad players. They dont need a better system, they need a better spine.

If thats doesn't satysfy anyone there let us all reminded ourselves the formula that worked up till now:

I can't wait to form my own rated bg team, it sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun. Especially since my first toon took a year to reach 80 because instead of questing all I did everyday was bg's (this was back before bg xp). And I totally agree with you about giving loser's something as well as the winner's. I mean the winner's should obviously get way more, but if you lose and get about 25% of what the victors did then it might encourage them to sign up for another and to lower what I think will be long que's.

the matchmaking system blizzard uses is very innovative. At the start it will make your MMR drastically raise and fall for wins or losses because it does not know you well enough yet. The further in you come the less it will switch your matchmaking value and you should elevate at about where you are supposed to be, of course your matchmaking will start to rise of fall drastically again if you go on long streaks of winning or losing because it tries to get you into the 50/50 win/lose ratio as fast as possible again. 10 matches should be all a sucky team would need to get to where they are supposed to. I know it is not very discussed in wow but they are using the same system for arena and starcraft 2 which they copied from chess rankings and i believe they will be using them as well for rated battlegrounds.

@Anon - I think your "copied from chess rankings" is a couple of rankings behind. IIRC, chess rankings were zero sum. The change (a year ago?) were to get rid of the zero sum aspect, so instead of going up or down from 1500, you only went up from zero. Now the secret MMR may be closer to the ELO idea.

But as others said, a public, accurate ranking would be a commercial failure as the bottom would start to drift away and the pool get smaller and smaller.

I think most of the posters here are basing their arguments on the premise that losers quit rated BGs forever. That's an assumption that goes against what we can observe in WoW.

Scrubs will still want to play rated BGs, because it's cool and gives them social standing with their peers. That is their reward for participating, and it will keep them coming back again and again. They will quit one losing team and, after some time, join another - thus creating a continuous churn of less skilled players in the below-average rating range.